Read-alike Guides - Gone Girl

If you liked Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, you might enjoy one of these books:

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

The school was on fire, and Grace's last memory is of trying to reach her daughter, Jenny, trapped inside. Afterwards, they learn that someone purposefully set the fire, and Jenny may still be in danger from someone who wants her dead. Grace may be the only one who can discover who might be responsible, and the police are looking at Adam, Jenny's younger brother, who is struck mute by the horror he witnessed and can't defend himself when he is accused of the arson.

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

This relentlessly suspenseful novel features a fractured narrative, complicated plot, and uneasy discrepancies between what appears to be happening and what is really going on. Without her husband's knowledge, Christine, whose memory is damaged by a long-ago accident, is treated by a neurologist who helps her to remember her former self through journal entries until inconsistencies begin to emerge, raising disturbing questions.

Beneath the Shadows by Sara Foster

When Grace’s husband inherits an isolated North Yorkshire cottage, they leave London behind to try a new life. A week later, he vanishes without a trace, leaving their baby daughter in her stroller on the doorstep. Returning to the tiny hamlet a year later, Grace searches for the truth as dreams begin to warn her of danger. Are the villagers hiding something, or is she becoming increasingly paranoid? This is a vividly written, emotionally complex tale.

The Breaker by Minette Walters

In another character-driven and intricately plotted psychological suspense story, a seemingly devoted husband becomes the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance and investigation reveals disturbing secrets. Here, a three-year-old girl is found wandering the streets and hours later, her mother's body is washed up on the beach.

The Burning Air by Erin Kelly

In her novels, Kelly provides keen insight into troubled characters with plots that reveal layers of deceit. Leading a cozy life of upper-class privilege, altruistic private school headmaster Rowan and his three grown children gather for the first time since the family matriarch Lydia's passing and are torn by years of secrets when a vengeful stranger arrives, claiming that Lydia was a murderer.

Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman

In this compelling, intricately plotted debut novel, a woman uncovers her dead husband's secrets. In the wake of her stalwart police officer husband's shattering suicide in their otherwise peaceful Adirondack village, house restorer Nora Hamilton notices strange inconsistencies in her husband's past and in the behaviors of his police force co-workers before stumbling on deadly local secrets.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

Looking for family secrets? Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next. His 14-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Like Gone Girl, The Dinner mixes literary prose with taut suspense and dark humor. It also features an unlikeable, unreliable narrator. Meeting at an Amsterdam restaurant for dinner, two couples move from small talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' act of violence that has triggered a police investigation and revealed the extent to which each family will go to protect those they love.

Drowned by Therese Bohman

This is a novel of subtle psychological suspense by Swedish author Bohman, in which betrayal and the relationship between sisters play a key role. Marina travels from Stockholm to rural Skêane for a summer visit to her sister Stella, she feels an uncanny combination of fascination and unease toward Stella's partner, the enigmatic, charismatic, violent, and unpredictable Gabriel. The reader will anticipate the worst but will still hope that disaster will be averted.

The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

Two families are inextricably linked by tragedy and time in this lyrical novel of psychological suspense. Returning to the insular Galveston home town of her youth in the wake of a family tragedy, photographer Clare Porterfield is drawn into a century-old mystery involving a woman who drowned during the Hurricane of 1900.

Heartbroken by Lisa Unger

Dysfunctional families and their twisted relationship dynamics are at the heart of this novel, in which a woman returns home after a long absence, exposing buried secrets and long-hidden lies. While Kate pens an evocative historical novel based on family journals, her neighbor, Emily, flees a volatile relationship to an island in the Adirondacks where she, Kate, and Kate's mother, Birdie, face the consequences of their pasts.

In the Woods by Tana French

French also writes dark, literary suspense stories in which extremely flawed narrators draw the reader into an emotionally charged story. Their protagonists also tend to be intimately involved with the crimes they are investigating. Here, 20 years after witnessing the violent disappearances of two friends from their small Dublin suburb, detective Rob Ryan investigates a chillingly similar murder that takes place in the same wooded area.

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

For thrillers with well-voiced characters and tautly suspenseful plots, look no further. Lee's flattering attentiveness to Catherine turns to jealousy as his controlling behaviour becomes frightening and he reveals his darker side; four years later, Catherine has escaped the relationship when she receives a phone call saying that Lee will soon be released from prison, prompting her to fear that he will come after her again.

The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman

Lippman's character-driven, disturbing novels (which mostly take place in Baltimore) are a good choice for Flynn's readers. Once the best of friends until a terrible secret tore them apart, a group of friends are suddenly brought back together under tragic circumstances and wonder if their long-ago lie is the reason for their troubles today and if someone is out to destroy them.

Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay

For another suspenseful missing person tale, try this novel by popular Canadian author Linwood Barclay. Small-town reporter David Harwood takes his wife and young son to an amusement park for a much-needed break. A sudden disappearance has David frantically trying to restore his family, and his investigation into the disappearance leads to a web of lies and deceit.

A Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams

Abrahams excels at placing flawed protagonists into what the reader knows is a bad situation. Readers are held in uneasy suspense for the duration as they watch things go from bad to worse. In A Perfect Crime, a cuckolded husband conceives a brilliant, deadly plan to exact revenge and simultaneously restore his flagging career.

Places in the Dark by Thomas H. Cook

Cal Chase watches his younger brother William follow his wandering soul, never expecting him to find true love, but when a stunning woman walks into William's life, Cal begins to worry about his safety as well as his heart. This disturbing, character-driven novel of suspense should be a good choice for Flynn fans.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

Lippman's intricately plotted, compelling suspense should appeal to Gone Girl fans. Interviewing a distressed and disoriented woman who has fled the scene of an accident, Baltimore County police department detective Kevin Infante is amazed when she claims to be the younger of a pair of sisters who were abducted thirty years earlier.

Also by Gillian Flynn:

Dark Places
For a price Libby Day will reconnect with the players that murdered her mother and two sisters in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas." Having testified that her brother Ben was the murderer on that fateful night twenty-five years ago, now she is not so sure as, piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started--on the run from a killer.

Sharp Objects
This is Flynn's 2006 debut novel. Returning to her hometown after an eight-year absence to investigate the murders of two girls, reporter Camille Preaker is reunited with her neurotic mother and enigmatic, thirteen-year-old half-sister as she works to uncover the truth about the killings.

Read-alike Guides - Jodi Picoult

 If you like the works of Jodi Picoult, you might enjoy one of these books:

Halfway House by Katharine Noel
Angie is a diligent student and all-star swimmer, but her entire world changes when it becomes apparent that she is mentally ill in a story of how families live through crisis. Noel considers the ways manic depression touches each member of the family with an uncanny ability to convey the disease as experienced by the patient.

Home Fires by Luanne Rice
Anne has just lost her young daughter in a tragic accident and her husband to another woman. With her world in upheaval, Anne returns to the secluded island hometown that her sister never escaped. A fire in the women's ancestral home drives Anne to rescue the one object she holds most dear and to be rescued by Thomas Devlin, a scarred firefighter with his own unfortunate past.

Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret
Bourret also writes compellingly about sympathetic characters faced with agonizing ethical decisions. In this debut novel, Ruby never dreamed that she had done anything wrong by rescuing Lark, an infant abandoned at a truck stop. What decision will she make years later when she sees Lark's picture in the newspaper as a missing child?

Past the Bleachers by Chris Bohjalian
Bohjalian is another New England author who favors close examination of hot button issues in small town settings. After Bill Parrish loses his young son Nathaniel to leukemia, he fills the void in his life by coaching a local Little League team and becoming attached to a mute boy, Lucky, who eerily reminds Bill of his own lost son.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline
A bestselling author of legal thrillers, Scottoline seems to excel at stand-alone domestic suspense as well. Volunteering at her daughter's school so that she can keep an eye on a bully, Rose faces a difficult choice when her daughter is tormented at the same time an explosion occurs in the cafeteria, a situation that causes Rose to be blamed for the bully's injuries.

Stolen by Susan Lewis
Lewis writes compelling, emotional tales about sensational subjects with understated execution. Lucy’s parents have always been there for her, and when she moves to the country to take over their thriving auction business, she knows she's made the right decision. Then, quite suddenly, she discovers a shocking truth that forces her to question everything she has ever known.

Testimony by Anita Shreve
A New England boarding school is rocked in the wake of a sex scandal in which participants were caught on videotape, a situation that derails the innocence and best intentions of students, parents, and others in life-shattering ways. Shreve offers sensitive portrayals of her characters in emotional stories with psychological depths.

A Theory of Relativity by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Readers with a preference for observing how families in turmoil deal with shocking situations will appreciate this novel of grieving grandparents locked in an anguished custody battle for the sole surviving daughter of parents lost in a car accident. Also try Mitchard’s The Deep End of the Ocean, Oprah’s first book club selection.

Truth and Consequences by Alison Lurie
University director Jane Mackenzie is dismayed when her injured husband falls for Delia, a beautiful writer who has recently joined the center's staff. The situation is complicated when Jane develops feelings for Delia's husband. Lurie explores what happens when the truth isn't always told, as well as the consequences of our every choice in this engrossing, wonderfully written novel.

While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
Miller’s stories have a more literary quality and delve more deeply into character's emotions. Here, Jo Becker is supremely content with her life, and she doesn't talk about the summer of 1968 when she walked away from another husband, another family and into a completely different identity only to be jerked back to her previous life after the brutal murder of her best friend.

Books by Picoult you shouldn’t miss:

My Sister’s Keeper
Conceived to provide a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister, teenage Anna begins to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures and decides to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body. The drama unfolds from the points of view of Anna, her parents, the self-absorbed lawyer, the court-appointed guardian ad litem, and Anna’s troubled older brother.

Nineteen Minutes
Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting.

Sing You Home
Ten years of infertility issues culminate in the destruction of music therapist Zoe Baxter's marriage, after which she falls in love with another woman. They want to start a family, but Zoe’s ex, Max, stands in the way. Picoult explores both gay rights and the legal aspects of fertility treatment in this novel, which includes a CD of folk songs she wrote with Ellen Wilber.

Read-alike Guides - Stephen King

If you like the psychological horror tales of Stephen King, you might enjoy one of these books:

Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon
Twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson's father finds a dead man handcuffed to a car's steering wheel that has plunged into Zephyr's Lake in 1964, and they realize that all is not as it seems in their quiet town. McCammon’s novel mixes hair-raising dangers and adventure with a coming-of-age tale.

From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz
Bartholomew Lampion grows up a prodigy, blinded by the surgery required to save him from a fast-spreading cancer. He regains his sight at the age of thirteen and sets out to transform the lives of everyone around him. Kooky characters, multiple storylines, and a fast pace provide something for everyone in this compelling tale of good and evil.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
This classic novel, in which a scientist of the supernatural invites three people to come to Hill House to study and record the occult incidents that occur there, has been scaring readers since its publication in 1959.The phantasma of other worlds—and private worlds—reveal a disconcerting similarity. King fans will appreciate the subtle psychological terror.

Homebody by Orson Scott Card
After losing his daughter in a car wreck, Don Lark buries himself in the work of restoring a magnificent, long-neglected Southern mansion. When he unearths an old tunnel in the cellar, he stirs up the demons of the house's tragic past. This novel is fast-paced, magical, and full of unusual characters.

Hunted Past Reason by Richard Matheson
A camping trip exposes long-hidden rivalries and resentments between two old friends. Tensions rise as they get farther from civilization, until the hostility erupts into a life or death struggle for survival. Matheson effectively translates the basic man-hunts-man story into modern psycho-thriller terms. As always, his dialogue rings true.

Mr. X by Peter Straub
Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan experiences a seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious and malevolent figure in black whom Ned calls Mr. X. Straub writes this horrific tale of self-discovery in evocative prose, populated with well-drawn characters. Mr. X boasts a labyrinthine plot with shocking twists.

Relic by Douglas J. Preston and Lincoln Child
Investigating a series of savage murders that disrupt a massive new exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History, graduate student Margo Green finds a clue in a failed Amazonian expedition. Relic has the right blend of gripping suspense, colorful characters, and credible science to create a gripping page-turner.

Sleep No More by Greg Iles
Enjoying a happy marriage while remembering an obsessive love affair years earlier (with a woman who subsequently died), John Waters encounters a woman with a secret only his ex-girlfriend knows. When she, too, is killed, Waters' life is enveloped by guilt and suspicion. Iles is masterful at sustaining psychological suspense with a multitude of plot twists and possibilities.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, this is the story of two boys and the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of a "dark carnival" one autumn midnight. How these two innocents save the souls of the town, makes for compelling reading on timeless themes. Bradbury excels in revealing the dark side that exists in us all.

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
Terror comes to Elm Haven, Illinois, when something or someone makes off with a child, bizarre events occur with increasing frequency, and the long-silent Borgia Bell rings by itself, announcing a malignant presence. Stephen King calls Summer of Night an “American nightmare with scares, suspense, and a sweet, surprising nostalgia, one of those rare must-read books.”

Also by Stephen King:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
King shares his insights into the craft of writing and offers a humorous perspective on his own experience as a writer. This is unmistakably King—friendly, sharply perceptive, cheerfully vulgar, sometimes adolescent in his humor, sometimes impatient with fools, but always sincere in his love of language and writing. (Find it in the nonfiction section, 813.54 Kin.)

Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King
Bare Bones is a cornucopia of rare insights into Stephen King, the man and the writer. The editors have assembled the first book of conversations with him, a series of revealing interviews King has granted to some of America's most respected interviewers. King discusses his life, his work, his fears and dreams. (Available in nonfiction, 813.54 Ki.)

The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels
Many of King’s early novels were written as Bachman. This omnibus includes Rage, a story of stunning psychological horror about an “estra” ordinary high school student; The Long Walk, a contest with death; Roadwork, a strange variation on the theme of “Home Sweet Home;” and The Running Man, where you bet your life—literally. (F Kin)